GENERAL
GEMINI
NEWS
SERVICE
GG 6397
THE WORLD'S FIRST AIR CONDITIONED TUBE RAILWAY
The most heavily used tube railway in the world. That will be the system now being built in Hongkong and due to go into operation next year. Singapore and Jakarta are watching progress. Such a railway could be the answer to their mounting traffic problems. Without the new railway, traffic in Hongkong would before long come to a halt. Gemini News Service reports the progress of the world's first fully air-conditioned underground railway.
BY FRENA BLOOMFIELD
HONGKONG
850 words approx.
Within two years, Asia will see the opening of the world's most heavily-used underground railway system, capable of carrying up to 1.8 million passengers a day.
This is Hongkong's Mass Transit Railway, now three-quarters completed and being carefully watched by Singapore and Jakarta as a possible solution to their own traffic problem.
Hongkong is the most densely populated part of Asia, which is partly an accident of geology · - its citizens being forced to live on the narrow strips of flat and reclaimed land which lie between granite hills and the sea.
It is also, however, due to the great influx of refugees in the Fifties which caused a jump in population from about half a million in 1947 to about 4.7 million now, and estimated to be six million by 1992.
Among other things, this has created a major traffic problem in Hongkong - a problem without the usual solutions. There is not enough land to allow much more road expansion and the number of private cars
goes on growing.
This has a great deal to do with the Hongkong businessman's recognised status symbols one of which is a big chauffeur-driven limousine. Government officials foresee a not-very-distant day when
traffic will grind to a halt.
Given its traditional laissez-faire policy, the government is unlikely to introduce draconion measures against private cars. alternative to road traffic had to be investigated.
So an
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